Rainbow that set the sky on fire:
In a breathtaking blaze of glory, Nature puts on one of its most spectacular sky shows.
Reds, oranges, blues and greens create a flaming rainbow that stretches above the clouds.
But this circumhorizon arc, as it is known, owes more to ice than fire. It occurs when sunlight passes through ice crystals in high cirrus clouds. It is one of 15 types of ice halos formed only when the most specific of factors dovetail precisely together.
This blanket of fire, covering hundreds of square miles, is the rarest phenomenon of them all. It was spotted in the US on the Washington-Idaho border around midday last Saturday.
I am a sucker for atmospheric phenomena, and this one takes the cake. It’s raining here on Bowen Island today, so it seemed appropriate to post this instead.
[tags]circumhorizon arc, rainbow, atmosphere[/tags]
I’m fond of saying that I’m the last consultant in the world without a cell phone. While that is true for business, my partner and I have one that we use for personal purposes. And because we use it so infrequently (mostly for emergencies or urban logistics when we’re in the big city) we have it hooked on to a prepaid plan from fido.
Now fido offers you a couple of ways to handle prepayment. You can either buy vouchers or use a credit card. A credit card is preferable for us. So because we are running low on our initial minutes, we called the handy prepayment number to refill our prepaid account …or not.
This evening we have been stuck in voice mail jail trying to register to have our fido mobile phone account refilled by Visa. It has taken quite a while and we still haven’t gotten any help. Here’s what happens:
- Dial 611 (or *46 or any of the other numbers fido says to call…they all take you to the same robot. She says her name is “Andrea.” Nice.)
- Follow the robot’s directions patiently to register for instant prepayment, so that we can use our credit card to refill. Optionally don’t be patient and just say “representative” into the phone. It will take you to the same place anyway.
- One of two things will happen. You might get an English speaking representative who will tell you politely that he can’t do this manually, and that you have to speak to the robot about it. If this happens, the robot takes you through the same logic chain that delivers you into the lap of an English speaking representative, who will breezily deny that this reality even happened. We had several very nice young people speak with us this evening, and we think we actually even witnessed a shift change down at the old call centre.
- Once in a while Andrea will not direct you to a friendly but useless English speaking representative, but instead will forward you to another robot who, in French, politely informs you that the French customer service office is now closed and will reopen at 8am. She then terminates the call, leaving you flummoxed and with no recourse but to blog the whole experience.
So that’s it. If anyone can help us figure out how to get credit card refilling authorized and then done, that would be nice. If you fido guys are reading this, give us a call, but don’t mince your words, we only have two precious minutes remaining in our account!. Your robot has the number. Her name is Andrea.
In the meantime I guess we’re thinking about switching to Telus or something. The bottom line for fido: crap customer services trumps friendly robots. The French twist on the whole thing was pretty funny though, so the evening’s entertainment was not a total loss.
[tags]fido, bad+customer+service, voice+mail, cell+phone, help![/tags]
Here are a number of bits and pieces that have been waiting around for ages to get posted:
- Donella Meadows on being a global citizen and dancing with systems. From Bill Harris at Making Sense with Facilitated Systems.
- Getting Started with Action Learning, also from Bill.
- Dave Pollard on indigenous capacities for learning and discovery:
The word indigenous* means ‘born into and part of’, and by inference ‘inseparably connected to’. We are all, I think, indigenous at birth, born into the Earth-organism and connected in a profound and primal way to all life on the planet, even if we are born in the sterile confines of an ‘antiseptic’ hospital. But we are quickly indoctrinated into the civilized conceit of human separateness, and that conceptual separateness is reinforced by a physical separateness until, soon enough, we forget that we are a part of a constituency greater and deeper than family or state. Conception thus becomes our reality.
My most important moments of learning and discovery have occurred in those rare moments when I’ve been able to briefly shake that illusion of separateness, and re-become indigenous, liberated, part of the real world.
- More Dave, on what we can learn from aphids:
If I’m correct, then the aphid I’m looking at right now does think and feel. She wonders. She is curious. She experiences the profound joy of living, and the commensurate desire to go on living. She enjoys the company of and communication with others. She is driven to learn and gets satisfaction from doing so. She experiences emotional grief and/or physical pain at being lost, separated, witnessing the death of a fellow creature, or being stepped on. She cares about all the life she can fathom, and as long as she lives she fathoms more, and passes along more knowledge, and more reason to care, in her DNA. That is why she is here.
- Na’Cha’uaht on Indians and oil:
One of the most basic and fundamental Nuu-chah-nulth principles is embodied in the phrase, “Hish’ukish Tsa’walk” (Everything is one/connected). A full comprehension of this principle teaches us that we cannot support unsustainable development. We cannot support an industry that would threaten our watersheds with complete devastation. We cannont gladly shake the hands of corporations who use proxy governments (US, UK etc.) to wage wars all over the world, killing other Indigenous people. We cannot make the best of an inevitable corporate imposition by selling ourselves for a few jobs and money. We cannot accept this inevitability.
- Squashed Philosophers, a redux of the major thinkers that underpin Western thought.
- Getting out of confusion through conversation by Nadine Tanner:
Conversation can help move us out of the discomfort of confusion. Inquiry opens a space for meaningful conversation. It makes your intangible confusion visible to others so you can begin to build a more complete understanding.
So, next time you’re confused try staying with it for a while. Share it with others. Start conversations. Connect the otherwise unconnected dots
- Patti on following desire lines:
When faced with a bird’s eye view of my own desire lines, measuring in quick paces the decisions I’ve made or not made, do I allow them to become the real path, or do I put up a concrete barrier to redirect myself back to the “official” road? And what is that process of creating our own path? What feelings does it entail, engender, cause?
As Finch said,
“Sometimes, following unknown paths, we find ourselves in a maze of growth, in failing light, unsure where we are, flailing through jungles of stiff, impenetrable shrubs and sharp briars in deceptively benign-looking woods. All at once we realize we are lost, unable to retrace our steps. Then, suddenly, we come out onto a paved highway, far from where we thought we were, feeling a gratefulness and a relief we are ashamed to acknowledge.
But sometimes, just sometimes, we come upon a new and unexpected clearing, a magical place unanticipated in our daily thoughts or even our dreams; and when we do, we are so amazed that we cease even to wonder whether we will be able to find our way back home, or, perchance, whether this might in fact be our new home.”
- Lisa Heft’s collection of papers on Open Space Technology
- Kevin Harris’s musings on community leadership, with links to an interesting paper.
This past week, the Conservative led Parliament in Canada voted to extend Canada’s military commitment in Afghanistan until the end of President Hamid Karzai’s term in office. In so doing, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the following:
Together, diplomats, workers and soldiers from 35 countries are working with the government of Afghanistan to rebuild that country. We are providing knowledge, financial assistance, security; security that allows the Afghan people to build a justice system, develop and grow their economy, construct schools, hospitals and irrigation systems, and yes, ensure that the rights of the Afghan people are protected.
[Translation]
I am thinking of the right of women to be treated like human beings, of the right to see, read and say whatever one wants, of the right to choose one’s leaders through the electoral process.
You can read the full text of the debate at Hansard.
In trying to make sense of Harper’s reasons for wanting to extend our commitment, the most compelling I could find were the above: that since the invasion of Afghanistan and in the ouster of the Taliban in 2002, human rights have improved.
While I have no doubt that this is the case, the Taliban being one of the worst regimes ever to grace the family of nations, the question of degree is a very important one. We are moving to become a major player in that country, backing Karzai’s government and otherwise participating in the establishment of democratic institutions. To me this is maybe the most compelling reason for being in Afghanistan, even as I stand firmly opposed to our combat military role.
But today I discovered that in fact this core purpose, the establishment of democratic institutions and guarantee of freedoms, the only thing that anyone claims to have been successful, has been a bit of a sham. According to a US Government Commission, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Afghanistan is on a watch list for exactly the kinds of reforms Harper was trumpeting as successes.
The USCIRF is a multi-faith committee that reviews religious freedom around the world using international standards. In their latest annual report, issued May 3, 2006 (download .pdf here; Afghanistan report starts on page 199) you can read about why Afghanistan is on their watch list. Among the reasons included are the following:
- The Afghanistan constitution, the one created by Karzai and the Americans and adopted in 2004 contains a clause known as the “repugnancy clause” which states that “no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.”
- There is no constitutional guarantee for freedom of religion, meaning no protection of individual rights or minority rights to practice freely.
- Journalists such as Ali Mohaqiq Hasab have been jailed and threatened with the death penalty for publishing opposition to punishments such as amputation and stoning, which are legitimate sentences in the Afghanistan legal system.
- In a public statement to the Commission by Afghanistan Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari he stated that he completely accepts the UN Declaration on Human Rights except for three clauses – the ones that protect freedom of speech, freedom of religion and equal rights for men and women. The Chief Justice himself protested the presence of women singers on the radio last year.
- TV and radio stations that have broadcast material considered arbitrarily contrary to Islam or Afghan culture have lost their licenses.
The report has been accepted by the US government.
To me, these reasons fly directly in the face of Harper’s most compelling argument. Canada may be fighting the remnants of the Taliban, whose views on these matters are more repugnant, but it seems that we are fighting at the behest of a President and government that, in law, has entrenched virulently anti-democratic principles that do nothing for the rights of women, journalists or religious minorities. The fact that we are actively participating in the creation of this justice system is appalling.
For formality’s sake, I am writing to Harper and my MP to see what the government’s plan is and will post any response I receive here.
[tags]Afghanistan, religous+freedom, Canada, Stephen+Harper[/tags]
At How to Save the World Dave has posted a reading list which is essentially a “Shifting Your Worldview 101” syllabus.
Thanks Dave.